{"id":244237,"date":"2025-09-21T16:10:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T16:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/244237\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T16:10:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T16:10:24","slug":"nursing-shortage-persists-in-nc-despite-recent-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/244237\/","title":{"rendered":"Nursing shortage persists in NC despite recent improvements"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jaymie Baxley<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though North Carolina still has far fewer nurses than it needs, incremental gains have been made in addressing the shortage.<\/p>\n

That was the key takeaway from an analysis<\/a> released Sept. 15 by the NC Health Talent Alliance, a public-private partnership of the NC Center on the Workforce for Health<\/a>, the NC Chamber Foundation<\/a> and the state\u2019s network of Area Health Education Centers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Emily McCartha, a senior policy analyst for the NC Center on the Workforce for Health<\/a>, said the group\u2019s analysis is based on data from a survey of 110 health care organizations that provided information on nearly 80,000 nursing positions at more than 1,560 facilities across the state.<\/p>\n

The data showed roughly a third of the state\u2019s positions for licensed practical nurses, who provide basic medical care under the supervision of registered nurses and physicians, are vacant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s worse than last year, when about a quarter of LPN positions were unfilled.<\/p>\n

Registered nurses, who make up the largest segment of North Carolina\u2019s nursing workforce and provide more advanced patient care (such as administering medications, coordinating treatment plans and supervising LPNs and nursing assistants) are also in short supply.<\/p>\n

About 13 percent of the state\u2019s registered nurse positions are unfilled. While higher than the national average<\/a> of a 10 percent vacancy rate, the number is an improvement over last year\u2019s rate of about 17 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Andy MacCracken, director of the center, said the improved rate comes with a caveat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said persistent shortages among LPNs and other support staff create additional pressures on registered nurses, a dynamic that has ripple effects throughout the health care system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that RNs rely heavily on the full care team, and when we don\u2019t have allied health professionals and LPNs at sufficient staffing levels, RNs have to take on a whole lot of extra duties and responsibilities,\u201d MacCracken said in an interview with NC Health News. \u201cThat contributes to untenable situations where we see folks either leave the employer or leave the profession overall, and that\u2019s not good for anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long shifts and heavy workloads<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are several factors driving the nursing shortage.<\/p>\n

Low pay is a major concern, particularly in rural parts of the state. A workforce needs assessment<\/a> commissioned last year by the North Carolina Healthcare Association<\/a>, the umbrella organization representing the state\u2019s hospital systems, noted that many rural health care systems and hospitals \u201ccannot match rising wages offered by more urban healthcare systems and robust wage growth in the broader private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

Difficult working conditions are another factor. In addition to long shifts and heavy workloads, nurses are often subject to verbal and physical abuse from patients.<\/p>\n

Forty-eight percent of respondents in a 2022 survey<\/a> conducted by the North Carolina Nurses Association said they had \u201cpersonally witnessed violence\u201d at work in the past two years. Twenty-seven percent reported being victims of violence.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s staffing woes are not new.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lawmakers in the N.C. General Assembly have been aware of the problem for decades; they passed legislation acknowledging a \u201cnursing shortage in the state<\/a>\u201d back in 1989.<\/p>\n

And, MacCracken said, the issue existed even before then.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve identified a nursing shortage in North Carolina for close to half a century,\u201d he said. \u201cSo as we are tackling these issues, we know that there\u2019s an ebb and flow to what the shortage looks like and the nature of what might be driving the shortage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge, he added, is \u201cmaking sure that there\u2019s sustained focus on where we need to go next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vincent Ginski, director of workforce competitiveness for the NC Chamber Foundation, said that\u2019s partly the purpose of the alliance\u2019s analysis \u2014 the second produced by the partnership since its founding in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile anecdotal evidence of staffing challenges has existed for years, the survey \u2014 combined with complementary secondary data \u2014 offers a more detailed and contextualized picture of workforce needs across the state,\u201d he said in a news release. \u201cWe\u2019re using this to develop regional strategies to address workforce needs since they vary greatly across the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Signs of progress\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

During a webinar unveiling the new data<\/a>, McCartha said the state had seen an uptick in \u201ceducational output.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The number of newly licensed registered nurses with bachelor\u2019s and associate degrees has increased nearly 15 percent in three years. That growth has helped drive a 10.6 percent rise in the overall supply of licensed registered nurses during the past five years, with almost half of that increase occurring in the last year alone.<\/p>\n

That increase will be needed, given that a 2023 survey conducted by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing found that the median age<\/a> of nurses nationwide is 46 years, and more than a quarter of RNs said they planned to retire or leave nursing in the coming five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For licensed practical nurses, the pipeline has also improved, with educational output climbing about 13 percent in the past three years. Still, the state\u2019s total number of LPNs is about 4 percent lower than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Members of the alliance believe the rising number of graduates can be attributed to increased public and private investments in nursing programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Melissa Smith, senior state director of health science programs for the North Carolina Community College System, noted that the General Assembly appropriated $55 million<\/a> in 2023 to expand programs in nursing and \u201cother critical shortage fields\u201d at all 58 of the state\u2019s community colleges. About 44 percent of those funds have gone to colleges in rural counties, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have seen great growth,\u201d Smith said of the schools, adding that the money has created a \u201cspark of excitement\u201d among their students and staff. \u201cAs I\u2019ve visited some of the colleges, it\u2019s like, \u2018We\u2019ve got this whole new lab, and we would have never been able to afford this [without the legislative funding].\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

MacCracken said it will be crucial to maintain and continue building that school-to-workforce pipeline for nurses in the coming years.<\/p>\n

It has been estimated that North Carolina will need 17,500 more nurses<\/a> over the next decade to keep up with the state\u2019s aging and growing population. The population of people ages 65 and older in North Carolina is projected to grow<\/a> from 1.9 million in 2022 to more than 2.8 million by 2042, according to data<\/a> from the N.C. Office of State Budget and Management.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the near future, the people math gets really scary as we think about North Carolina\u2019s population growth and projections for us to have a million additional seniors living in North Carolina,\u201d MacCracken said. \u201cIn really the near future, we have waves of retirement that we would expect from the health workforce, and I think we\u2019re already seeing some of that bear out in our data.\u201d<\/p>\n

He expects the shortage to have a particularly negative impact in long-term care settings, which could, in turn, place strain on other providers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we\u2019re looking at how these pieces fit together, it\u2019s really important to acknowledge this as an ecosystem,\u201d he said. \u201cAs we look ahead at the significant demand that we\u2019re going to have on long term care, our ability to tackle that is going to have an effect on our hospitals, can have an effect on primary care. All of this works together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republish This Story<\/p>\n

\"Creative<\/a><\/p>\n

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jaymie Baxley Though North Carolina still has far fewer nurses than it needs, incremental gains have been…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":244238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[130084,210,1141,18379,130085,1142,130086,65215,130087,130088,21919,130089,130090,130091,130092,125010,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-244237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-community-colleges","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-health-education","12":"tag-health-workforce","13":"tag-healthcare","14":"tag-licensed-practical-nurses","15":"tag-long-term-care","16":"tag-nc-center-on-the-workforce-for-health","17":"tag-nc-chamber-foundation","18":"tag-nc-general-assembly","19":"tag-nc-health-talent-alliance","20":"tag-nc-healthcare-association","21":"tag-nc-nurses-association","22":"tag-nursing-shortage","23":"tag-registered-nurses","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115243164274159867","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}